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A Grand adventure

PARIS, ONT.–We take off like truant school kids, leaving the group of kayakers and canoeists far behind. My friend Mary and I are on a five-hour, 22-kilometre paddling stretch down the Grand River from Cambridge to Paris, one hour west of Toronto.

It's a combination of a beautiful, warm day and our restless, independent spirits that lead us to tackle the gentle currents of the Grand River on our own.

Paris may be nestled between the Grand and Nith Rivers – instead of the Seine – with the town named after the nearby gypsum deposits used for plaster of Paris, rather than the City of Light; but it still has a picturesque, European charm with its historic cobblestone homes.

It's also headquarters for Grand Experiences, a canoe and kayak outfitters company started in 1997 that provides paddling excursions down the Grand River and surrounding Southern Ontario waters.

They have supplied 20 enthusiastic members of the Halton Outdoor Club, lead by Dorothy Rideough, with everything needed for a day out on the water.

This is the third year that Rideough has organized trips down the Grand for the Burlington-based club.

"It's a nice, easy day trip (from the GTA). Anybody can go down the Grand. It's hard to get into trouble, since the water is only a few inches deep," says Rideough, who became hooked on kayaking while vacationing in her native New Brunswick five years ago.

The 300-kilometre river (more than 200 kilometres of it navigable) is the most biologically diverse area in Canada, he says. Kent's company takes 10,000 customers a year on day trips and overnighters, about 90 per cent on the Grand.

His clientele has increased by about 40 per cent yearly, which he attributes to paddling's growing popularity as a recreational sport, particularly kayaking – which many find swifter and easier to master than a canoe.

"With kayaking there's a sense of freedom of being in the boat by yourself," he says.

A school bus takes us from the parking lot in Paris to the starting point for our excursion in Cambridge.

Paddling down the central Grand, the air is filled with the almost sickeningly sweet scent of pastel flowers.

Along the way, Mary spots wild irises and two great blue herons. We get caught on the rocks more than a few times and use our paddles to pry ourselves free. But in doing so, we tip the canoe – three times.

After starting out around 10:30 a.m. (with one quick stop for lunch on a tiny island), we arrive back in Paris about 3:30 p.m. Still no club members in sight.

"You're the first one back," says the woman behind the desk at Grand Experiences.

"How far did we paddle?" I ask.

"Twenty-two kilometres."

We leave a note for the club, take our car and do a tour of the picturesque town before the one-hour drive back to Oakville.

Rideough phones me that evening.

"Where were you?" she asks. "We counted the boats at our lunch break. We started out with two canoes, but one was missing. We figured you were way ahead of us. I knew that there were enough people on the river to help you, though, if you ran into trouble."

Rideough says the club stopped for lunch at the ruins of a mill, built in the late 1700s and once used to process wool. Farther downstream guides pointed out a hollowed-out, 300-year-old sycamore tree, which separates the Carolinian forest from the softwood boreal forest. Paddlers were also shown a spring bubbling from a rock on the banks and walked up a rail-trail to a lookout on one of four abutments of limestone pillars, part of an unfinished train bridge constructed before World War I. They finished about 5:30 p.m.

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